“Reading and writing are actually relatively recent inventions. Face-to-face communication has been fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution. That’s what’s made it into this mysterious, powerful thing it is. Someone speaks, there’s resonance in all these receiving brains, the whole group acts together. I mean, this is the connective tissue of the human superorganism in action. It’s probably driven our culture for millennia. 500 years ago, it ran into a competitor with lethal advantage. It’s right here. Print scaled.

The world’s ambitious innovators and influencers now could get their ideas to spread far and wide, and so the art of the spoken word pretty much withered on the vine. But now, in the blink of an eye, the game has changed again. It’s not too much to say that what Gutenberg did for writing, online video can now do for face-to-face communication. So, that primal medium, which your brain is exquisitely wired for…that just went global.”

“We may have to reinvent an ancient art form […] one person speaking can be seen by millions, shedding light on potent ideas, creating intense desire for learning and to respond – and an intense desire to laugh. For the first time in human history, talented students down’t have to have their potential and their dreams written out of history by lousy teachers. They can sit two feet in front of the world’s finest.”

“Now, TED is just a small part of this. I mean, the world’s universities are opening up their curricula. Thousands of individuals and organizations are sharing their knowledge and data online. Thousands of people are figuring out new ways to learn and, crucially, to respond, completing the cycle. You’re part of the crowd that may be about to launch the biggest learning cycle in human history, a cycle carrying all of us to a smarter, wiser, more beautiful place.”